14 years ago when climate scientists were under attack by unknown “hackers”, following the theft of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, it was a widely shared sentiment among scientists and knowledgeable observers that the “hack” was a Russian op.
It was known, for instance, that the stolen emails had first shown up on a Russian server.
Means, Motive, opportunity, all quite clear.
I remember wondering at that time, what further lengths a criminal state like Russia, so entirely dependent on fossil fuels for revenue, might go to as climate awareness, and a burgeoning clean energy transition, further threatened their economic model. Now we know.
I believe that 2009 hack was just a warmup for the nearly identical operation that stole emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016, and used them to assist Donald Trump’s election campaign.
The Republican-lead Senate Intelligence Committee later called this op part of an “aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”
The invasion of Ukraine had roots in Russian history, and Vladimir Putin’s dreams of restoring the Russian Empire, but clearly Ukraine’s large gas reserves, and the valuable pipeline infrastructure into Europe on Ukrainian territory, were part of the motivation. Russia’s subsequent use of gas as a weapon against global democracies further demonstrate the intention to exert influence through fossil fuel domination.
The recent outbreak of terrorism and slaughter in the Middle East show a strong Russian fingerprint.
The U.S. last year sanctioned a Moscow-based crypto exchange to stymie Russian efforts to evade the financial blockade imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
A year on, the exchange is booming.
Despite its place on the U.S. blacklist, which restricts transactions with sanctioned entities, Garantex has become a major channel through which Russians move funds into and out of the country, according to trading data and people familiar with the firm. It has also been a vehicle for Russian cybercriminals to launder their earnings, U.S. authorities say.
Garantex’s growing role as a global conduit for illicit funds was underscored this month by evidence that Palestinian militants in part financed their operations through crypto in the lead-up to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Digital wallets controlled by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which joined Hamas in the attacks, received a portion of $93 million via Garantex, according to analysis by researcher Elliptic, which said Hamas also used a similar financing strategy.
The U.S. Treasury, in a report last year, said gaps in financial crime controls at crypto exchanges can allow terrorist groups to misuse them. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last summer the use of digital currencies was making the job of stopping terrorist financing ever more complex.
Josh Rogan in the Washington Post:
The timing of the attack could not have been better for Putin, who coincidentally was celebrating his birthday on Oct. 7, when hundreds of Hamas terrorists entered Israel and slaughtered more the 1,300 civilians. Russia’s main foreign policy goal right now is to distract the world from its ongoing invasion and atrocities in Ukraine. Specifically, Moscow is pushing for an end to U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, which is hanging by a thin thread in Congress. The crisis in Israel aids these efforts. Moscow’s interest is in stoking it, not solving it.
While there is no clear evidence that Russian leaders knew about the Hamas attacks in advance, the Kremlin is working hard to take advantage. Russia has stepped up its support for Hamas diplomatically and in the propaganda war; it’s also seizing the opportunity to ramp up its violence in Ukraine while the world is distracted. On Oct. 8, senior Hamas official Ali Baraka praised Russia’s assistance in an interview with Russia Today, a state-controlled media outlet.
“There are countries that support us politically. Even Russia sympathizes with us,” he said. “Russia is happy that America is getting embroiled in the Palestinian war. It eases the pressure on the Russians in Ukraine. One war eases the pressure in another war. So, we’re not alone on the battlefield.”
Russia’s true level of actual military support to Hamas is hard to pin down, but there are several telltale signs. Baraka said Hamas possessed Russian licenses to produce the Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition its terrorists used in the assault. Ukrainian officials have claimed that Russia’s mercenary firm Wagner helped train Hamas soldiers. Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist groups reportedly launderillicit funds through a Moscow-based crypto exchange.
Reports of direct Russian military support for Hamas remain unconfirmed, U.S. officials told me. But the military collaboration between Russia and Iran in Ukraine also seems to have benefited Hamas. Iranian and Russian cooperation on armed drones has flourished during the Ukraine war. Now, Hamas is using similar drones against Israeli targets in new ways.
Hamas’ advanced tactics using drones on armored vehicles must have been the result of Russian training, Ukraine’s military intelligence Kyrylo Budanovsaid in an interview with Ukrainska Pravada released on Oct. 12.
While it did not constitute a clear indication of Russia’s direct involvement in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the tactics strongly mirrored those used in Russia’s war on Ukraine, he said.
In addition, there were several other signs in the weeks leading up to the attacks that provide further evidence of increased Russian connections with Israel’s foes in the region.
Budanov noted that the Russian state-run news agency Sputnik began Arabic language broadcasts in Lebanon in the days preceding the attack, using language and narratives consistent with well-known tropes of Russian propaganda.
On Sept. 22-24, a Russian delegation visited Iran and discussed an expansion of intelligence capabilities. Finally, Budanov added that a Russian reconnaissance satellite was moved to orbit over Israel one week before Hamas’ attack.
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In the days after the 2016 election, I called into an NPR news talk show to draw a link between the Climate hack of 2009 and the Hillary hack of 2016. You can hear the discomfort of the “cool kid” DC journalists with what they obviously believed was a crank call, but I stand by that even more today.
Still few in the media willing to connect the obvious dots and realize the roots and magnitude of the struggle we are in.
The clean energy transition is as critical for Democracy as it is for a livable Climate.
Great post!
The “Axis of Evil” is alive and well, it would seem. Letting Iran get a nuclear bomb is a very troubling idea. We are closer to WWIII today than ever before.
I believe the fossil fuel industry has a ‘perverse incentive’ to promote War. This would be trivial if it didn’t have the means to do so. Both the ‘War on Terror’ and the Ukraine War were (arguably for the former) started by fossil-powered countries. Why would they do this? Simple: Wars are expensive. So expensive that climate action often must be deferred. Also, Wars scare people into voting for authoritarian rightwing populists chanting ‘I alone can fix it’ at the barrel of a gun. So Wars are bad for pro-democracy parties. This is happening in Europe as we speak, as regular liberal Parties lose voters to neo-Right Parties who oppose both the expense of the Ukrainian War AND the expense of a ‘green transition’. Like Donald Trump, the neo-Right, everywhere in the Western World, claims climate change a hoax.
By making climate action financially AND politically expensive in the Western World, Putin may have won the Ukraine War just by starting it. And 15 of 17 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Yet, when the smoke cleared, the primary beneficiary of the trillions spent on the ‘War on Terror’ was that same country. In part, because the U.S. had just spent trillions of dollars, and a decade, on that war, instead of on climate action. Someone benefits from retaining the ‘energy status quo’. In times of War, which are times of great expense and great uncertainty, it is obvious who that is.